Main page learning project/QOTD

This learning project allows Wikiversity participants to explore the content used in {{QOTD}} which inserts a quote in the Wikiversity:Main Page. The quote appears prominently in the top right corner, next to the welcome message. A (discuss) link accompanies the quote. Here is today's quote:

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." — Plutarch (discuss)

Projects and activities.

State the exact source of the quotes.

Discuss the quotes.

Find more quotes.

Make Wikiversity pages for each person who is quoted.

Due to the placement on our main page these QOTD discussions that are linked from the Main Page are frequent targets for test edits, vandalism, and spam. Therefore, the mainspace resource pages redirect to the talk page to prevent editing by unregistered users in a searchable mainspace page. The talk pages are open to anyone editing. For many this might be their first time editing on a wiki. This project is to encourage discussion of the quote but it is also a kind of sandbox for introducing newcomers to collaborative editing.

Yes, though can we remove the "therefore"? (It doesn't make sense in a soundbyte.) I'll look for more nuggets from Dewey... Cormaggiotalk 10:58, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Is it still a quote if we remove words ;) Wikiquote does not give a specific source for this quote, so I'm not even sure if it is correct. See also "Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not a preparation for life but is life itself." [1] but this does not look like a reliable source. --mikeutalk 03:00, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

:-) A quote can be shortened, or made to fit a context better, by replacing words with a "[...]" to indicate that words have been removed. (It is presumed the words removed are peripheral, and not completely altering the meaning of the sentence!) The original wording is correct - it's from "My Pedagogic Creed". Cormaggiotalk 12:25, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the English translation is dreadful and the French better. But the original French expresses exactly the idea that is present in the concept of cultural imperialism. So I'm not sure that this is really the message that we should be giving. There are many educational quotes that are better than this. Sorry for posting this outside the main discussion page, but I'm vaguely against this one, even in the French. McCormack 07:19, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." — Plutarch (discuss)

Source: "The correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting — no more — and then it motivates one towards originality and instills the desire for truth. Suppose someone were to go and ask his neighbors for fire and find a substantial blaze there, and just stay there continually warming himself: that is no different from someone who goes to someone else to get to some of his rationality, and fails to realize that he ought to ignite his own flame, his own intellect, but is happy to sit entranced by the lecture, and the words trigger only associative thinking and bring, as it were, only a flush to his cheeks and a glow to his limbs; but he has not dispelled or dispersed, in the warm light of philosophy, the internal dank gloom of his mind." On Listening to Lectures; q:Education

I'm not so keen on this one. Seeing the backstory it is about a death penalty court case. It has a lot do with freedom of expression, but little to do with education or learning. --mikeutalk 04:18, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

"We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People are terrified — how can you live and not know? It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don't know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know." — Richard Feynman

Source: "What is and What Should be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society", given at the Galileo Symposium in Italy (1964) q:Richard Feynman

"On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other." — Stewart Brand

"Forts, arsenals, garrisons, armies, navies, are means of security and defence, which were invented in half-civilized times and in feudal or despotic countries; but schoolhouses are the republican line of fortifications, and if they are dismantled and dilapidated, ignorance and vice will pour in their legions through every breach" — w:Horace Mann

Source: Fourth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Board of Education, The Common School Journal (Boston. January 13, 1841)

Discuss:

This is one of my favorite quotes, but I'm having difficulty shortening it to a length appropriate for the main page. Perhaps "[if schoolhouses] are dismantled and dilapidated, ignorance and vice will pour in their legions through every breach" though that is still a bit too long. --mikeutalk 18:51, 20 January 2016 (UTC)